For Enemies
by Sarra Collan
Summary: It was easier to hate him when you didn't know he was human. Letters between Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter after their sixth year offer a glimpse into the aftermath of obsession and the desperate lengths some go to for companionship.


_For Enemies_

Zacharias Smith entered the room, a combination dungeon and closet, and took the only available chair which squeaked when he settled his weight onto it. The small, splintered wooden table in front of him seemed to groan as it leaned to one side.

His Quick-Quotes quill hovered in the air, and he took several deep breaths, trying desperately to smooth the wrinkles in his cheap suit. There was still a small part of him desperate for the approval of the man whose presence he awaited; it grated him that this man still had so much power over him.

The air was rank and damp; not that that surprised him. He was in a prison, not a hotel.

The prisoner entered, shuffling and clanking in chains, and sat stiffly on the stool which had been conjured for him. His bearing indicated he saw this as a mild inconvenience, rather than a dying man's last confessional.

"Mr. Malfoy—" Zacharias hesitated, aware of the guard outside the door, "again, are you sure you wouldn't rather see a priest, or some other man of faith?"

Malfoy simply stared at him, his grey eyes, just like his father's, heavy in his face.

"I have no faith," Malfoy responded coolly, "so I don't see why I should share it."

Zacharias tried again. "Mr. Malfoy, these are unique circumstances, and perhaps someone else would be better suited for the job."

"If I wanted someone else," said Malfoy, coldly but not cruelly, "I would have requested someone else. I want the truth known. It's that simple."

"The truth is relative."

Malfoy's slim shoulders shrugged. Prison had done him no favours; his pinched face was thinner, his ribs were visible through his thread-worn Azkaban jumpsuit, and his hair was limp, dirty, tangled, and dull. Somehow, damn him, he still retained some dignity.

"I can offer you proof. That's as close to the truth as anyone's ever going to get."

Malfoy shoved a thick packet of crumpled letters across the rickety table, then sat back and folded his arms. A glimmer of hatred and fear passed over his face as he let go, but it was gone almost instantly.

Zacharias took the letters, almost reverently, and pulled the top one from the hastily tied bundle. Before he could open it, however, Malfoy stood in a clatter of chains.

"If you don't mind," sneered Malfoy, "I would prefer not to be here for this. If you have any further questions when you're done, owl my barrister; he ought to be good for something."

The guard escorted Malfoy from the room, and Zacharias scooped the letters into his briefcase, remembering to snatch his Quick-Quotes Quill before he left, not that it meant much. His so-called interview with Draco Malfoy was worthless, and all he had to show for the time was a few lousy letters. Some confession. He had been led to believe this would be a career making article; the last words of a convicted felon. Instead he would be a laughingstock.

It was a long, cold walk out of Azkaban to the waiting ferry, and the feeling of the icy cell and Malfoy's hatred still hung off of him. To pass the time until he arrived on the mainland, he began to read.

* * *

_There is nothing you could say to me to make me understand._

_**-H. Potter**_

_Did it ever occur to you that I don't want your forgiveness? Did it even cross your mind that I live with my choices every day, that maybe, just maybe, I have worse sins? I don't have to explain my actions to you, Potter. I have nothing to say to you._

_**-D. Malfoy**_

_If you have nothing to say, why did you write me in the first place? I feel sorry for you. I bet you hate hearing that, I bet it just tears you apart. Yes, Malfoy, I pity you. You are exactly what your family made you. The perfect puppet. I know you, I know what makes you tick, and what's worse is that I easily could have been you. Were I even just an ounce weaker than I am, had I accepted your offer of friendship that day, then where would I be, Malfoy? Would I have been your crony, like Crabbe or Goyle? You wouldn't have found me that easy to control._

_You never have, have you? Your entire school career, what was I to you? I was your rival, and I was better than you at everything. You were weak, and I feel sorry for you._

_**-Potter**_

_You were right about one thing: I was weak. I'm not anymore. You can play the Chosen One to your heart's content, Harry Potter, but I know the truth. I know that deep down, you are nothing but that scared little boy who was locked in a broom cupboard for eleven years. Yes, I know that dirty little secret. My father used to laugh about it at the dinner table. You were a family joke, Potter. In a different way, you still are._

_No, I couldn't control you, and I wouldn't have tried had you accepted my offer. You chose the blood traitor and the Mudblood instead. You humiliated me, but I won in the end. Do you understand why? I doubt it. You're hardly clever. You thought I was thick, yet I came out on top._

_**-Malfoy**_

_You couldn't do it. In the end, you couldn't commit the act. I saw it, I saw it all. How he spoke to you of mercy, how you hesitated and lowered your wand. I don't hate you for failing; I am probably the only person in the world who would show you any compassion now. _

_Snape made his choice; double-agent or not he will not live after what he did, that I promise you. But you, Malfoy…I will show you the same mercy Dumbledore did. Not because I am as good as he, but because someday I hope to be._

_My life is built on vengeance. I have a duty and a destiny that I can't escape; I'm not trying. But I am not a murderer yet. I owe you nothing, but I am still willing to give you your life._

_**-Potter**_

_How fucking noble of you. I am wanted for crimes the world doesn't even know about yet, but the Great Harry Potter will show me mercy. I am too far gone, Potter, don't waste your pity on me._

_Then again, this isn't pity, is it? This is guilt. You feel responsible for not catching me sooner. I didn't kill Dumbledore with my own wand, but I tried, didn't I? Several times. And I am responsible. I nearly killed Katie Bell, I almost killed Weasley. And I don't care._

_I am not redeemable. I have made my choice as well._

_**-Malfoy**_

_Were that true, then you would not continue to respond to my letters. I know they're untraceable, but they're a waste of your time if you don't care about my opinion, which I think you do._

_I'm offering you a chance to live. How much longer do you think Voldemort will suffer you after you failed to do the job he assigned you? I imagine he's only begun to punish you for your incompetence. Voldemort does not suffer failure lightly; believe me, I've experienced it first hand._

_I am not offering you immunity. Not anymore. Not with Dumbledore dead, hundreds missing, and Hogwarts destroyed. You made stupid choices, Malfoy, but you did it under threat of death, I heard you say so to Dumbledore, and when you thought you were alone._

_It takes a brave wizard to stand up to Voldemort and say, 'I am not afraid to die.' You aren't brave, but then, you knew that._

_**-Potter**_

_Potter…_

_Your offer comes too late. They murdered my mother at dawn this morning. My father will be next, and I am powerless to stop it. I don't care about anything anymore. _

_You were the Hogwarts Golden Boy. I had classmates who either feared me, loathed me, or accepted me because of my name, and only one professor whom I respected for his. Wealth and power were not enough to fill the gaps._

_Believe it or not, even Slytherins are capable of love, and I loved my mother._

_All of that's gone, so what's left to live for?_

_**-Malfoy**_

_I am sorry about your mother. It sounds shallow, but it's sincere._

_My offer still stands. You don't have to suffer the same fate._

_**-Potter**_

_More pity. You were right; we are alike. I obsessed over beating you at something, anything. I played your shadow, determined to make a name for myself at any cost. You were right, even Snape was right: I was a child._

_It cost me. And I'm still paying. You're not immune to the shadows, you know. One of these days you will know exactly what I know, and it will eat you up inside. There is nothing inside me for it to feed on, so I'm just wasting away._

_**-Malfoy**_

_You get more poetic with each letter, you pathetic little ferret. For once in your life, let something other than your blood dictate your decision. This time, I'm offering you my hand. This isn't friendship, this is something darker, fouler, and perverted, but I don't care._

_Dumbledore's last act was an attempt to save you. I could not call myself his man if I didn't attempt to do the same. And you are a blood relative of Sirius's. For that alone I'd help you._

_You're not my rival anymore, Malfoy. I have bigger problems than you. Let me help you and get on with my life. Or what's left of it._

_**-Potter**_

_You just don't get it, Potter. Damn you, I did everything, I tried everything, but it was never good enough for you. You joined the Quidditch team, I joined the Quidditch team, and yet you beat me in every match. You were the poster boy for the Light, so I went out of my way, I suffered just to be your counterpart. When you ruined my father's plans in the Department of Mysteries, you effectively signed our death warrant. And still all I thought about was somehow beating you, proving that I was not worthless._

_You can't dismiss me as if I was some old toy from your childhood, Potter. I will always be a part of what makes you tick. You don't care about me, fine, but I helped make you what you are, and no matter what you cannot deny that._

_**-Malfoy**_

_What the hell is this, some kind of perverted love letter? Clearly you don't get it, Malfoy, I don't give a damn about you! You know what shaped me? Being marked from birth, knowing I was famous only because I survived when my parents were murdered. Having friends who cared enough about me to help me face enormous dangers at age eleven. Losing the last father-figures I would ever know in this stupid, wasteful battle._

_You mean absolutely nothing to me. I am not offering to save you for yourself, I am offering only because Dumbledore would have, and because apparently I have a 'saving people thing'. _

_Had you murdered Dumbledore yourself we would not be exchanging these letters. But you weren't strong enough, and you should thank whatever god you believe in every day for that._

_You aren't evil, Malfoy, you aren't my shadow. You're a boy who got in over his head because he was threatened with death. Hundreds, maybe thousands who were in your place chose death. They didn't shame their names._

_But, wait, I forgot, your name is proud, isn't it? Proud of that ugly tattoo on your arm. Only I expect that with two failures in the family, what is left of the inbred Malfoy clan wishes only to distance themselves from you._

_You had a point. What is left to live for?_

_**-Potter**_

_Don't, don't do that, don't you dare say that. I won't let you. I won't let you just dismiss me like that. You don't have that right. You don't have the right to make me meaningless._

_I am going to die any day now, it's only a matter of waiting it out. I'm sure they got to my father, and there wasn't enough left of my mother to bury, so I'm counting down the seconds. I will not let you make my life into something pathetic, I will not let you turn my parents' deaths into a cause for celebration._

_I don't know where you are right now, just as you don't know where I am, and we like it that way, don't we, Potter? A chance to get things off our chests without fear of capture?_

_You need me. You have no one else to confess your worries, your hatred to, for fear of being seen as weak. You can't afford that, can you, Potter? Yet here I am, lower than low, so far gone that I'll probably never see you alive again (though I am considering haunting you for the rest of eternity; then again, that would probably be extremely dull), and so you have nothing to lose by writing to me._

_That's the real reason for these letters, isn't it? Not some hope for my salvation, or one last promise to Dumbledore, this is because you have no other outlet, and I'm available._

_You mask your fear with insults designed to hurt me because you can't hurt the one you really want. He's out of your reach, Potter, though I don't doubt that every moment you're breathing you're thinking up some desperate plan to make him pay. Meanwhile, here I am, still answering your letters, a ready target for your steaming hatred._

_And so long as you need that, you turn your own words to lies._

_**-Malfoy**_

_Amazing, you're a wanted criminal and yet you still have such a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I honestly thought that for a moment up on that tower I saw something in you worth saving, but I must have been out of my mind._

_For one entire year I hunted you. At every turn I tried desperately to figure out what you were up to, certain that you'd become a Death Eater, certain that you were serving Voldemort. No one believed me, not even Ron and Hermione, because no one believed you were capable of it. You were slime, you were loathsome, capable of childish taunts and repeating what you'd heard over breakfast from people stronger than you, but not capable of that._

_I knew better. For six years I faced off against you at every turn, and I knew exactly what you were capable of. I knew that if you truly believed in what you were doing, then you would do whatever it took to get there. I was a perfect example of that, wasn't I?_

_Snape will pay, even if it takes a lifetime to track him down. You aren't a substitute for him, my hatred of him runs deeper than you could imagine, and only my hatred of Voldemort is stronger. They have an earlier claim on me, their claim stems from my parents. You're shallow, Malfoy, there is no deeper level to you. Even your evil acts are superficial. If my words hurt you, then that's just a bonus._

_You think I hate you for six years of school rivalry? I wouldn't waste my spit on you. Snape and Voldemort are directly responsible for the murder of my parents, and the subsequent life I've been forced into. I am the Chosen One, Malfoy. And you do not fit into that equation anymore._

_**-Potter**_

_He murdered my parents, too. Do you honestly believe I worship him for that?_

_**-Malfoy**_

_No. I know you serve him out of fear. But you still serve him. What do you want me to say, Malfoy? What do you want from me?_

_My life is not about you. Right now, as we exchange these ultimately pointless letters, my friends are dying. People who have sworn their lives to me and my cause are disappearing by the dozens. Those who haven't the courage to fight back are lost before we even knew they were in danger._

_I'm tired. No, I'm exhausted. I don't have the strength for this, but I'll keep going because it's what I have to do. No one is threatening me to make me do it, I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. Even if I hadn't been marked by Voldemort, I would still be in the same position. I understand you, but, honestly, I don't want to pretend to know exactly what you're thinking anymore._

_This is not a relationship, Malfoy. There's no trust between us, and there never can be. You think that I'm confessing my fears and weaknesses to you? You know nothing about me, really. I don't have to tell my friends about my fear or my hatred because they know me so well that they understand it without words._

_I think you're scared and confused. I think you're grasping at straws, clinging to these letters as some sort of security blanket; our 'rivalry' has been the one constant in the past six years, hasn't it? Am I truly the only familiarity in your life anymore?_

_**-Potter**_

_Call it what you will, I don't care. It doesn't change the fact that you are still writing me, and I am writing back. That is a relationship, twisted though it may be. You can try writing me out of your life, Potter, but I'll always be the nasty voice in the back of your head, telling you when you're wrong._

_**-Malfoy

* * *

**_

"What the hell is this?" he asked Malfoy at their next meeting. "You're due to be executed in a week, and you throw these in my face?"

Malfoy was imperturbable. "Have you finished them?"

"No," Zacharias replied, somewhat startled by Malfoy's lack of emotion. He wanted to knock this man down. "I got a bit sidetracked when I found out Harry Potter was writing _you_ letters."

"Come back when you're done, then, I have nothing to say to you until then."

* * *

_You never replied to my last letter. Getting tired of our little game, are you? Tell you what, if I offer you the names and locations of certain Death Eaters, will that prompt you to write to me again?_

_**-Malfoy**_

_You really are foul, Malfoy. Why should I believe anything you say? What difference does it make to you anyway? Why do you care if I write to you?_

_This is sick and twisted, and I won't play games. If you have information you're willing to share, I'll speak with some others. It might change your situation. _

_But I'm certain this is a ploy. What's worse is that I seem to be falling for it. Just know that I'm aware of it._

_**-Potter**_

_Let's just say I've become accustomed to your letters, and in my current self-imposed exile, sharing insults with you is about all I have to look forward to. If betraying my fellows will convince you to keep up communications, then I think it's worth it._

_Clearly you're tired of offering me salvation, so I had to think of something to maintain your interest. I care not at all for my 'situation'._

_**-Malfoy**_

_You made a big mistake, Malfoy. You just handed me all the power; surprising, considering what you've done in the past for it, but not entirely unexpected. I know what you want from me, and what you're offering me isn't worth it. _

_I have repeatedly made offers to save you, and you turned me down each time. Fine, I'm finished. Your lies about the whereabouts of Death Eaters don't interest me. Consider this my last letter to you._

_**-Potter**_

_You don't understand, you don't realise… Look, my dear Aunt Bellatrix is lurking at a family estate in Devonshire, Nott and Goyle are together in London, and MacNair made it out of the country. I don't know how good your French connections are, but you might be able to track him down near Avignon. _

_Is that good enough for you? And before you ask, I don't know where Snape is, and frankly, I wouldn't tell you if I did. With Mother gone I feel very little loyalty to Bellatrix, but Snape saved my life, Unbreakable Vow or no Unbreakable Vow. I won't give him up to you._

_But, again, I don't have a clue where he is, so it's irrelevant._

_**-Malfoy**_

_Fine. I loathe you again, are you satisfied? Now leave me alone. I have more important things to worry about._

_**-Potter**_

_Did you really think it would be that easy? I'm certain I have information you want, why don't you use me?_

_Can it be that you're afraid of what you might find out?_

_**-Malfoy**_

_Is this honestly some kind of game for you? Clearly the myth is true: skull and snake tattoos really do affect your intelligence. Can't you understand that I am still trying to help you? I have no idea why, but I am. Stop writing to me, you'll only get yourself killed that much faster._

_When the other Death Eaters find out you're betraying them for a piece of paper with my handwriting on it, there won't be enough of you left to scrape off the ground. Find a new hobby, I'm done._

_**-Potter**_

_I'm touched that you're so concerned for my well-being, Potter. Honestly, can't a marked man have a little fun anymore? I gave you what you needed to destroy my enemies. You really want to do me a favour, go take care of those names I gave you. If necessary I can provide you precise addresses._

_You want the truth? I don't have much in this world anymore thanks to you and your kind, but I do still have this, your animosity, and if you think I'm going to just give it up, you don't know me as well as you thought._

_The sooner you admit that you're enjoying this, the sooner we can form some sort of equitable relationship._

_**-Malfoy**_

_You make me want to tear all my hair out. Why are you so thick? I can't make it any clearer that you as a person mean less to me than dragon dung. If it were a choice between you and some other person with feelings and a beating heart then I would gladly step over your prostrate form. Is that what you've been waiting all this time to hear?_

_As of now you are a cause, Malfoy. Nothing more. You are a chance to complete the unfinished work of one of the greatest wizards who ever lived, and a chance to piss off one of the most loathsome. You, Draco Malfoy, do not really matter._

_I can't think of any other way to say it. Just leave me alone._

_**-Potter**_

_Is this some kind of joke? What are you playing at? Damn it, Malfoy, are you reduced to stalking me now? Determined to bring me lower?_

_You know, I had my doubts when you first wrote to me. I clung desperately to the memory of that night on the tower, assuring myself that while you were a despicable cockroach, you also weren't a murderer. Was I so wrong? Really?_

_I have a job to do. This isn't a game! Fuck you, I am not trying to amuse you! If you ever dare come near me again, I'll rip your throat out._

_How could you possibly make my life worse?_

_You have done everything in your power, you have played these mind games with me for months now. How did you find out? How did you find me? Damn you, Malfoy._

_**-Potter**_

_I know you're not dead. Believe me, I'd know if you were. So answer me. ANSWER ME! **–Potter**_

_So I don't matter? I'm nothing but a cause to you? Go fuck yourself, Potter. If you had any idea what I've done in the past months to help you…who the hell cares anymore? _

_It wasn't mind games. Now I wish it were._

_**-Malfoy**_

_I really will kill you now. What do you know? What is this? Fuck you, you've destroyed months of work without a backwards glance. How could you do this to me?_

_There really isn't any good in you, is there. I feel incredibly stupid now. I thought I could trust my instincts. Even after Snape, I thought I could trust Dumbledore. You're just eighteen. Then again, so am I, and I know what I'm capable of. I was blind, because I honestly thought I understood you._

_There's a prophecy, did you know that? Of course you did, Voldemort's obsessed with it, and it was the one thing your dad failed to retrieve. 'Neither can live while the other survives,' that's what it says. _

_Congratulations. Voldemort chose the right boy for the job after all. Thanks to you, I'm going to die, and so will millions of others. But they aren't your kind of people, so what does it matter, right?_

_This was all just to tear me down. None of it, not even the punctuation was sincere. How could I have been so dense? Why did I let myself believe it?_

_Maybe because I wanted you to want to change. There is enough evil in the world as is, and I thought that just maybe I could save a piece of it. I was wrong._

_That's all there is to it. I was wrong, and so millions will suffer._

_**-Potter**_

_All you had to do was ask. All you've ever had to do was trust me. I paid for my sins in ways you can't possibly imagine. I made up for my mistakes to the best of my ability and it still wasn't good enough._

_My entire life became about beating you, until I found myself on the wrong side of the same wizard who was determined to destroy you first. In that moment, Harry, in the moment where I failed to kill Albus Dumbledore, we found ourselves on the same side of the war._

_It is not in my nature to help you, so where does that leave me? Trapped in some sort of eternal Limbo, unable to save myself from the obsession I had always fed into? So I changed the terms. If I wasn't going to destroy you, then I was going to save you._

_I failed at that as well, of course. You can't change your nature overnight, and every impulse I had told me to take you down in whatever way I could._

_I fought against it, knowing that the Dark Lord was on my trail and you were just about my only hope. It sickened me, knowing that, I hated you for it. _

_I'm not a saint, but I didn't serve you up to the Dark Lord on a platter in the hope of a reprieve. The Dark Lord does not forgive, and I'm not stupid. And maybe I couldn't beat you, but that doesn't mean I still couldn't win._

_You needed me, you fed into me, and you accepted me. That is victory. You may have hated every minute of it, you may feel betrayed, and you may not have cared about me, but that doesn't matter. I won, Harry. _

_In the end, no matter what, I won._

_**-Draco Malfoy

* * *

**_

"So what happened, exactly?" Zacharias asked Malfoy at their third meeting. Malfoy was sitting as calmly as ever, that annoying regal bearing firmly in place.

"After the letters, or during?"

"Both. During first. I felt like I'd missed something important. And I couldn't find the first letter you wrote him."

"He burned that one. Possibly a few others that made him particularly angry. But the event you're referring to was when I went to see him in person. Our rendezvous was interrupted by Death Eaters, at least three people died. He blamed me, of course, because I had apparently given away his hiding place, ruining whatever plans had been fermenting. To this day I have no idea what it was that I supposedly ruined."

The question he'd been dying to ask for some time burst out. "If you had these letters, why didn't you appeal? It could at least have stayed your execution!"

Malfoy shrugged, though not without some effort. "When Harry Potter puts you in prison on a murder charge, you stay there."

Zacharias gasped. "Harry put you in here?"

"Ironic, isn't it?" Malfoy smirked, though the effort seemed to exhaust him. "In the end, he was the one to betray me. The last letter I wrote him, emotional as it was, lacked the usual secrecy spells, so he tracked it and caught me. I understood, though, it was a matter of pride, and just a touch of madness. Azkaban was as safe as anyplace, though, so despite the accommodations, I didn't complain."

"But now you're going to die!" Zacharias exclaimed, as if Malfoy just didn't understand. "And you're all right with that?"

A small half-smile fluttered across Malfoy's face. "What's left to live for?"

Zacharias couldn't stop himself from feeling outrage at this injustice.

"Cheer up," Malfoy added, unexpectedly. "Thanks to you and the piece you're going to run on me—"

"I haven't agreed—" Zacharias began, but he was interrupted.

"—the prison council has agreed to grant me my last request. So you have done your Hufflepuff duty." Malfoy almost smiled at the look on Zacharias' face. "You didn't think I recognised you, did you?"

"No," Zacharias answered honestly. "I didn't think you really knew who I was when we were at Hogwarts together."

Malfoy shrugged again. "Come on then, our transportation awaits."

Zacharias started. "I beg your pardon?"

"You're coming with me," said Malfoy. "Apparently this needs to be well-documented. And I suppose if you're going to do a piece on me, you might as well do it properly. So let's go."

They were each Disillusioned before leaving Azkaban so as not to frighten any Muggles they might pass. As they travelled to the mainland, Malfoy wrapped tightly in chains, the guard's wand at his neck, Zacharias forced himself to comment on the unusual situation. Malfoy didn't appear at all interested in making a break for it.

"They agreed to this, what ever it is, because I took an interest in you?" Zacharias asked.

"In a manner of speaking. I may not have much influence in the world anymore, but I do still have quite a bit of gold. Money is still an international language, Smith, and I'm scheduled to die. What's the harm?"

Zacharias still had no idea where they were going. The guard did, however, and once on the mainland they took a Portkey, disguised as a dirty slipper. Once he found his bearings again, Zacharias took in the signpost.

Godric's Hollow.

Malfoy's serene act was starting to make his fists itch, but he only followed the guard as they wound their way through the sleepy village. Malfoy said something quietly to the guard and they took a detour towards a small graveyard. Gradually, it started to come together.

The guard allowed Zacharias and Malfoy to step forward alone, shuffling forward in Malfoy's case. The sun was just beginning to show over the horizon, and the sounds of people preparing breakfast could be heard on the breeze. There was no one in the graveyard but them, and Zacharias was sure that Malfoy would bolt at any moment.

He didn't. Slowly, awkwardly, he got down on his knees and gently brushed away some of the ivy that covered a headstone.

_Harry James Potter_, it said, _Friend and Saviour. He died so others could live._

"Rubbish," Malfoy said. "He would have hated this."

"What do you think he would have liked then?" choked Zacharias, extremely uncomfortable by his surroundings. Curse the circumstances that had led him to Malfoy in the first place.

Malfoy was silent for a moment. "Something honest."

He fumbled for a stick on the ground, hindered by the chains around his wrists, and then slowly, precisely, wrote something in the dirt in front of the epitaph.

_Harry Potter: He Had a Saving People Thing._

Then, to Zacharias's ever-lasting shock, Draco Malfoy broke down and cried.


End file.
